Pinebook Pro NVMe Question

[Selden]

I learned about the upcoming Pinebook Pro from an article in Forbes today: https://goo.gl/ZQUbyb

The part that really caught my attention was "an unpopulated NVMe slot."

IF someone populated the NVMe slot with a drive, would the Pinebook Pro use the built-in eMMC flash storage for startup and core OS tasks, using the NVMe drive for primary storage?

[Luke]

I learned about the upcoming Pinebook Pro from an article in Forbes today: https://goo.gl/ZQUbyb

The part that really caught my attention was "an unpopulated NVMe slot."

IF someone populated the NVMe slot with a drive, would the Pinebook Pro use the built-in eMMC flash storage for startup and core OS tasks, using the NVMe drive for primary storage?

To my knowledge, PCIe (which is the interface used for NVMe) isn't bootable at this time in either the BSP or mainline kernel. So, presently, NVMe drives can only be used as storage. This may however change in time.

[DennyL]

The SD Card slot would be a viable boot device tho correct?

[Luke]

The SD Card slot would be a viable boot device tho correct?

Yes, SD is bootable

[Selden]

Thanks, Luke, that's what I expected. I'm not interested in booting from the NVMe drive, but from the eMMC, which I assume can be partitioned, with a different distro in each partition, using GRUB at boot to select. With a 64 Gb eMMC flash storage, space might get tight, but with 128 Gb, not so much, as long as the NVMe is recognized by any of them. Plan B would be to boot from sd card, as Denny suggests. Pre-release spec isn't clear: will the Pinebook Pro have a SDHC slot or a microSD slot? Doesn't really matter, as I have a 128 Gb microSD, which can slot into a SDHC adapter.

At this point, with the Pinebook Pro not yet released, and my not having made a purchase decision, this is a hypothetical question, but I am obsessive about researching things before investing -- even for a $199 laptop.

[favio]

i saw in an article that there will be 128 gb eMMC option for registered users, is that correct? in that case i could fit two and more partitions

[Luke]

i saw in an article that there will be 128 gb eMMC option for registered users, is that correct? in that case i could fit two and more partitions

Correct.